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First solo flight

Flying Canuck

Well Known Member
Patron
It's as official as it's going to get. This evening I took my newly finished plane out solo. I put in 7 flights with my engine builder to get me completely comfortable handling the plane. I decided to leave him behind today and went out for some circuits resulting in 9 decent landings (out of 9). Greased the mains every time, bounced the nose wheel a little a couple of times.

This really is an easy plane to fly, I'm probably a little fast, final at 75kts, touching down at about 65. No problem getting down to those speeds with my c/s prop. I'm finding it to settle down very well, sinking exactly like I'd expect it to. I haven't used full flaps yet, 1/2 (18 deg) is good enough.

Flying solo showed a bit of a heavy left side - not there at all dual. I had a full left tank as well, so I would have been surprised if the wasn't some heaviness to the left. Didn't need to adjust anything to fly it like that other than a touch of right stick that I hardly noticed.

This also marked the first flight where my CHTs stayed below 400F all the way. I hit 399 on #1 on the first circuit, it peaked in the low 380s after that. Fuel flow was 8-9 gph on downwind while indicating 103-110 kts.

The most surreal part of the flight tonight is that I didn't need to schedule anything and I didn't need anyone's permission. I can get used to that! I'm looking forward to starting on some of the actual testing over the next few flights. The grin may be permanent.
 
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Congratulations!

Pictures or it didn't happen!! :)

I think what you're seeing with the heavier left side is indeed normal. My -9A is much, much more sensitive to lateral weight distribution than my Cherokee was. I can really tell a difference when one tank gets a little heavier, with/without a passenger, etc. I suspect this is all a result of the overall design, and the fact that the thing just weighs so much less than the Cherokee.

It's as official as it's going to get. This evening I took my newly finished plane out solo. I put in 7 flights with my engine builder to get me completely comfortable handling the plane. I decided to leave him behind today and went out for some circuits resulting in 9 decent landings (out of 9). Greased the mains every time, bounced the nose wheel a little a couple of times.

This really is an easy plane to fly, I'm probably a little fast, final at 75kts, touching down at about 65. No problem getting down to those speeds with my c/s prop. I'm finding it to settle down very well, sinking exactly like I'd expect it to. I haven't used full flaps yet, 1/2 (18 deg) is good enough.

Flying solo showed a bit of a heavy left side - not there at all dual. I had a full left tank as well, so I would have been surprised if the wasn't some heaviness to the left. Didn't need to adjust anything to fly it like that other than a touch of right stick that I hardly noticed.

This also marked the first flight where my EGTs stayed below 400F all the way. I hit 399 on #1 on the first circuit, it peaked in the low 380s after that. Fuel flow was 8-9 gph on downwind while indicating 103-110 kts.

The most surreal part of the flight tonight is that I didn't need to schedule anything and I didn't need anyone's permission. I can get used to that! I'm looking forward to starting on some of the actual testing over the next few flights. The grin may be permanent.
 
Congratulations

Congratulations Claude
It?s been two years since I soloed my 6 and your right about having trouble getting rid of the grin , since it sounds like your breaking in a new engine , try and get 10 plus hours of hard running on her before doing to much patern work, mine took nearly 15 hours before CHTs settled down into the 370-380 range @ 65-75% PWR Cruz ,,, I found wheel fairings helped cool things better when your airspeed increases
 
You are correct on the break in. I?m closing in on 10 hours, running time. 7.2 hours of air time. We did run it hard for most of the first 5 hours and CHTs have started to come down from the shocking initial numbers. I?ll be back to pushing it for the next few flights, but I think the break in is proceeding well. I?m down only about 1/2 quart of oil. I?ve got my leg fairings ready to install, might tackle that before my next flight.
 
Congratulations!

Congrats, Claude! I'm about a year behind you, and motivated by your success!

How about those pictures?
 
Pictures

All of these picture requests are great, but I'll need to install that flux capacitor before I can get the ones I didn't take. Maybe I should add "take some pictures" to my checklists.
 
First Solo

Congrats on your new plane!

I have 700 hrs on my 9A and loving it

Do you have AOA?

I fly my approaches much slower than you describe
With AOA my app speed is about 60kts with touch down about 54kts

Yes it will ?fly on? much faster than that but it is not necessary (unless you have a G5 on short final behind you as I once did!)



Enjoy your plane!
 
Do you have AOA?

I fly my approaches much slower than you describe
With AOA my app speed is about 60kts with touch down about 54kts

I do have AOA, and it's calibrated. I may well bring my speeds down once I get more comfortable with it. The only stalls done so far were for the AOA calibration and were done power on and fully loaded, so the stall happened at 55kts. I know the stall speed will be much lower in landing configuration, once I've found that number I'll see what a lower approach and landing speed feels like. For now, the faster speeds are working and it keeps the nerves about dropping it on in check. I have noticed though that when I'm doing a touch and go, it wants to jump off the runway pretty much as soon as I start to advance the throttle. I'm sure that would ease up if I'm not doing lift off speeds on rollout. My landing distances aren't great at these speeds, but since the first exit on the primary runway at my home airport is about 5000' from the threshold, landing short is a nuisance. The other advantage to the higher speeds, or perhaps the perceived high performance, the flight service station here views me as a high performance aircraft and treats me quite well because of it.
 
my stall speeds for reference, gross weight:

stall clean = 51 kts
stall flaps = 43 kts

they are lower at light weight.
 
Your flaps stall speed is exactly what Van's lists. I wonder if that was intended to be a landing configuration number. My 55kt experience doesn't look to be too out of line consider that was clean, heavy and power on. I'll definitely be finding my numbers on my next flight.

Thanks for sharing those Steve.
 
Grin away

Your flaps stall speed is exactly what Van's lists. I wonder if that was intended to be a landing configuration number. My 55kt experience doesn't look to be too out of line consider that was clean, heavy and power on. I'll definitely be finding my numbers on my next flight.

Thanks for sharing those Steve.

Not sure how you all feel but it is very nice to have very little challenge when landing. And yes stall speeds are also same as Vans advertises. Congrats Bud
 
All of these picture requests are great, but I'll need to install that flux capacitor before I can get the ones I didn't take. Maybe I should add "take some pictures" to my checklists.
Hmmm, perhaps there's a new DIY kit for me to sell there...!

Congratulations Claude!

 
Hmmm, perhaps there's a new DIY kit for me to sell there...!

Congratulations Claude!


Great idea Paul! Your led lights would probably save a chunk of a jigawatt and let you make it small enough for panel mounting.

Your light kit worked out great in my plane - I need to check my left strobe as it's not working, but that's likely a wire that's come loose. Come to think of it, I owe you a picture don't I.
 
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